I am a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science and author of "What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data -- Lifeblood of Big Business -- and the End of Privacy as We Know It.” I am now researching the business of medical data. Please send story ideas and your experiences in the world of personal data to: book (at) whatstaysinvegas.us. On Twitter, follow me at DataCurtain. http://www.facebook.com/WhatStaysinVegas

800 Pound Gorilla Among Data Brokers Lets You See Their Dossier About You Starting Today

As first reported here in Forbes in June, data broker AcxiomAcxiom, after long denying consumers access to complete dossiers about them in their files, has decided to open their vault to the general public. The big day has finally arrived. Earlier on Wednesday, the Little Rock, Ark. company launched a new site AboutTheData.com that allows anyone to see the long secret file about them.

“Know what data says about you and how it is used,” Acxiomsays on the site.

“Ever wonder what kind of information determines the ads you see or the offers you receive? You’ve come to the right place. About The Data brings you answers to questions about the data that fuels marketing and helps ensure you see offers on things that mean the most to you and your family.”

Do they have information about you? Most likely. They have files on 700 million individuals, including your hobbies, what you like to buy and your magazine subscriptions. The file might also list race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, education, political affiliation and occupation.

In the privacy policy for the new site, Acxiom says it will allow users to edit and suppress information about themselves. However, to see their file, users must give up personal data and pass an authentication exam. That means giving your address, email, last four digits of your Social Security number and date of birth. Can they use that information? “The information you provide may be shared within the Acxiom Corporation family of businesses,” the company says.

Is the file eerily accurate, or rife with errors? What was surprising? How did you feel about the process? From today we can find out. I’d like to hear from readers who access their profiles. Please write me at book@behindthedatacurtain.com. I plan to run a follow up article on the files soon.

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It’s a novel idea but so what if tons more companies selling data do the same, do consumers have time to visit everyone’s site and fix their data? Don’t think so as they tried that with doctors and their referral sites which are riddled with errors as I written about many times. It’ still not going to be real popular to make millions or billions with getting free data and dumping it on the consumer to fix the errors for free once the sellers have made their money…license and excise tax data sellers, the missing link is an IT infrastructure linked to ALL (banks too) having to buy a license and maintain a listing on a website stating what kind of data a company sells and to who.

Like I said a novel idea but you can’t make the consumer the free labor pool to fix your data while it also runs the risk of denying some of of service for the consumer as well. Sorry…but it’s an epidemic and leads to more inequality by segmentation for consumers in the long run as who knows maybe an insurance company will buy this data, query with the MasterCard and Vista data they buy to see if their insured members are buying a size larger clothes (that what Blue Cross annied up to when asked)…

Once queried with other data, magic, we have a new data base to sell…but I’m a big privacy advocate who used to write code and truckloads of SQL queries so no doubt in my mind how this all goes:) Only the Query Master knows for sure.